Absurdly Driven looks at the world of business with a skeptical eye and a firmly rooted tongue in cheek.
Everyone makes mistakes.
One trick of management, however, is to limit the kinds of mistakes some employees can make.
Yet still mistakes happen. Sometimes, big ones.
Who knows what really happened before the dawn of Black Friday when the McDonald’s Twitter account offered this joyous message?
Black Friday **** Need copy and link****
— McDonald’s (@McDonaldsCorp) November 24, 2017
Ah. Oh.
This looks like a draft that was emitted by a flailing finger. But whose finger?
What happened next is equally curious.
The tweet wasn’t removed. It sat there all night like a lame, untended McNugget waiting to be devoured by the mischievous and the greedy.
In the early morning, McDonald’s tried to make light of its Blank Friday.
When you tweet before your first cup of McCafé… Nothing comes before coffee. pic.twitter.com/aPJ2ZupS9b
— McDonald’s (@McDonaldsCorp) November 24, 2017
This didn’t help.
After all, the whole world knew that the legendarily sharp Wendy’s Twitter account was ready to dig its teeth into McDonald’s.
When the tweets are as broken as the ice cream machine. https://t.co/esdndK1iFm
— Wendy’s (@Wendys) November 24, 2017
And suddenly Wendy’s enjoyed 248,000 retweets and more than 660,000 likes.
Perhaps Twitter skirmishes are just so much temporary flim-flam.
They’re here today and they’re gone before today is even remotely through.
Yet big brand Twitter accounts do offer a small glimpse into the way a company works and thinks.
However much McDonald’s tried to effect a admirable save, you couldn’t help thinking that the brand just isn’t too sharp.
Indeed, Wendy’s couldn’t help adding relish.
As the retweets and likes piled up, it offered this musing:
We’re gonna end up owing ourselves a year of free chicken nuggets at this rate.
— Wendy’s (@Wendys) November 24, 2017
Should you have spent the last year hiding from the world in a geodesic dome in the woods, you might not know that this refers to Wendy’s giving a year’s worth of nuggets to a youth who broke the world retweet record.
I contacted McDonald’s to ask what might have happened with its copy-and-missing-link tweet. I will update, should a reply be delivered.
Of course, we all mistakes. The overly speedy world of social media merely encourages them.
Yet this isn’t the first time that Wendy’s has been waiting to pounce on its larger rival.
Earlier this year, McDonald’s proudly announced on Twitter: “Today we’ve announced that by mid-2018, all Quarter Pounder burgers at the majority of our restaurants will be cooked with fresh beef.”
To which Wendy’s replied: “So you’ll still use frozen beef in MOST of your burgers in ALL of your restaurants? Asking for a friend.”